


Final Judgement

by Griselda_Gimpel



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Body Horror, Canon - Manga, Canon Compliant, Dark Comedy, Gen, Hell, Implied/Referenced Genocide, Ishval Civil War, Judgment, Nazis by Another Name, Period-Typical Racism, Post-Canon, Self-Imposed Hell, Theodicy, ironic hell
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2019-10-25 02:18:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17716187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Griselda_Gimpel/pseuds/Griselda_Gimpel
Summary: An anthology where those responsible for the Extermination Campaign find themselves before Ishvala after they die.Chapter 1: Solf J. KimbleeChapter 2: Roy MustangChapter 3: Maes HughesChapter 4: Henry Knox





	1. The Same Place

**Author's Note:**

> After binging the first two seasons of The Good Place, I was in the mood to write an ironic, self-imposed Hell story.

                One moment, the soul of Solf J. Kimblee was doffing his hat to Edward Elric at Pride’s defeat, and the next moment, Solf was not-quite-alone in a featureless void. He looked to his left. Nothing but blank, white emptiness greeted his eyes. He looked to the right. It was the same. He looked down. He wasn’t actually standing on anything, which made him wonder what he was standing on, at all. Looking down also gave him a glimpse of the clothes he was wearing. Gone was his beautiful, white suit. He was instead clad in the clothes he’d worn in prison.

                “Hey! What gives!” he demanded of the Ishvalan man standing in front of him. As far as Solf could tell, the Ishvalan was the only other person in existence. Realization dawned on Solf. “Oh,” he said. “You’re Ishvala. This is, what, my final judgement?”

                “You are correct,” Ishvala intoned.

                “So, what’s it going to be?” Solf asked jauntily. “The rack? The iron maiden? Hot poker up the pecker?”

                “No,” said Ishvala. “It will be none of those things.” His tone was impassionate and gave no hint as to Solf’s fate.

                “Well, what then?” Solf asked. A part of him was genuinely curious. As Ishvala was a deity, it stood to reason that he’d have a different perspective on all matters than a mere mortal. What fiendish torment could the mind of an immortal being cook up?

                “You are to enter Paradise,” Ishvala informed him.

                “Excuse me?” Solf asked. It wasn’t that he had misheard. It was that the words weren’t processing.

                Ishvala didn’t say anything, but all of a sudden, they were both standing in Paradise. Solf gave a half-sardonic clap. He rather would have expected that Ishvala would have had to clap his hands or say a magic word or something, but the change had been instantaneous.

                Solf looked around. Paradise was the semblance of outdoors. A river flowed lazily nearby. Tables and chairs were set on the banks of it. Birds chirped in the background, but no insects bit. The sun was shining brightly, but it wasn’t hot enough to make anyone sweat.

                As far as he could tell, he was the only non-Ishvalan in the area. A quick scan of the faces in the crowd told him that every Ishvalan in this part of Paradise had been sent there by him personally. They paid him no heed when he arrived but continued on with their laughing and drinking and dancing. Paradise, it would seem, was one non-stop party.

                “My victims!” Solf exclaimed, rubbing his hands together. “This truly is Paradise!” He strode up to the first one, a middle age woman with dimples. He remembered killing her fondly. To his dismay, she had both her arms in Paradise. The hands of both of her arms were occupied in peeling and eating a nectarine. “Remember me?” Solf asked the woman, positively leering. His smile faded when she gave no indication that she had heard him. She simply continued eating her fruit happily.  

                Ishvala chuckled. “She can’t hear you.”

                “What?”

                “Oh, Solf,” said Ishvala. “This is Paradise. There’s no room for negativity here. In fact, the way you are now, they can’t even perceive your existence.”

                “They can’t see or hear me?”

                “Nor touch nor smell nor taste you,” confirmed Ishvala. “Nothing you say or do can hurt them.”

                “We’ll see about that,” Solf said and then let off a string of invectives. “Filthy mongrels!”

                The woman continued eating her nectarine in peace.

                “Desert dogs!”

                The short Ishvalan man Solf said that to continued dancing without interruption.

                “Filthy scum!”

                Nothing. No reaction. Solf’s shoulders slumped.

                “They’re safe from you,” Ishvala said. “Or it wouldn’t be Paradise for them.”

                However, Solf wasn’t ready to give up yet. “Oh, yeah?” he sneered and then brought his hands together. The blast tore through a group of singing Ishvalans, only for them to be untouched afterward. They didn’t even appear to notice the attack. Then Solf spotted something smoldering on the ground. “Oh, but it looks like I did hit something!”

                Solf bounded over to the object he had destroyed. His spirits dimmed when he saw what it was. It was a pure white suit, complete with a hat. It was now in tatters from his blast attack. As he reached out to touch it, wondering if perhaps he could repair it with alchemy, it crumbled into the finest dust in front of him. A gust of wind came and blew the dust away.

                “Oh, dear,” Ishvala said. “That looks to be exactly your size, too.”

                The reality of the situation was finally beginning to sink in with Solf. “So I just have to stay here, forever?” he asked. “While they all get to be happy? But- but that’s torture!”

                Ishvala gave no reply. Ishvala had vanished, leaving Solf alone in the crowd.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are various bits of folklore where Heaven and Hell are the exact same place, which provided the guidance for this fan fic.


	2. Town Hall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Nazi-esque burn & pain experiments - and Roy's involvement in them - is one of the bits of the manga that largely got cut from the Brotherhood anime.

                Roy Mustang wanted to fidget as the town hall filled up with prospective voters, but his hands were bound. It was his first time wearing the bulky restraints that prevented him from putting his palms together or against an alchemic circle, and he was finding it to be an unpleasant experience. A chain connected his restraints to the podium, and the podium was bolted to the floor.

                Next to him, his campaign aide gave the chain a testing tug and then flashed Roy a thumbs up sign. Roy smiled winningly back. The man was the only Ishvalan who’d volunteered for Roy’s campaign, so he was the one trusted with making sure that Roy wouldn’t be able to use his flame attacks during the town hall.

                Not that Roy planned to engage in combat on the campaign trail, but his past was not easily sloughed off. Trust would be even harder to rebuild than Ishval had been. Roy sighed. He had also not originally planned to do a town hall in rebuilt Ishval. For that matter, he hadn’t intended to run for Führer President. In his head, Grumman would retire and appoint Roy his successor as Führer. The president title would come the same way Bradley achieved it, via a ballot with only a single name on it. Then – as a benevolent autocrat - Roy would end all of Amestris’ wasteful wars, make sure the veterans were taken care of, disband the State Alchemist program, restore power to the parliament, and then arrange democratic elections before standing trial for his crimes in Ishval.

                Then Grumman had hauled off and pardoned him.

                That had changed things. Now, if Roy wanted achieve his vision for the country, he had to win the election fair and square. That meant campaigning.

                In all honesty, Roy could probably win while never stepping foot in Ishval. The Ishvalan population was still very tiny; it would be a drop in the bucket against all of the other votes. He didn’t honestly expect many (any) of them to vote for him, anyway.

                It was just the principle of the thing.

                Because the population of Ishval would be larger if not for Roy and his flame attacks.

                The Ishvalans who had chosen to attend finished filing in and taking their seats, but Roy’s aide did not leave the stage. It had been decided that the prospective voters would be more comfortable if he was on hand. Roy frowned briefly. He was blanking on the name of his aide. There were awkward shuffles from the audience, which was Roy’s cue to begin.

                “Welcome, ladies and gentleman,” Roy began. “As candidate for president for the Future Party, I come here seeking your vote. Please ask any questions. Yes, you. Go ahead and go first. State your name before the question, please.”

                “Doran Bieber. What even made you decide to run for president?”

                “I want to make this a better country,” Roy answered promptly. He pointed to another raised hand.

                “Efrat Chaikin. Why didn’t you spend any time in jail?”

                “Grumman pardoned me. Next question.” Roy pointed to another attendee.

                “Gilad Feld. You killed my family. Go to Hell!”

                “That’s really not a question.”

                Before Roy could point to someone else, Feld spoke up again. “Seeing as to how you killed my family, why don’t you go to Hell?”

                “Next-”

                “You didn’t answer the question,” Roy’s aide broke in. “You have to answer all of their questions, even if they’re hard.”

                “Right, of course, um…” Roy floundered momentarily, and then at least part of the aide’s name floated into his head. “Ish. Thank you, Ish.” That wasn’t the aide’s full name, but he still couldn’t recall what it was short for. Ishmael, maybe?

                “So,” Ish pressed, “why don’t you go to Hell?”

                Roy gathered himself before speaking. “My going to Hell would do nothing to change the crimes I committed in the past, but as president, I swear to make a better country where no Extermination Campaign happens ever again.”

                Another prospective voter raised her hand. Roy pointed to her, and she spoke. “Nissa Mandelbaum. How can you be both the best man to lead Amestris and be the man who slaughtered so many innocents?”

                Roy cast a glance at Ish. “This is torture,” he muttered. Ish did not appear sympathetic, and Mandelbaum overheard him.

                “No,” she snapped, “torture is what you did to me in that lab when you forced me to be a test subject for that appalling burn experiment.”

                Roy blinked in surprise.

                “Is something that matter, Roy?” Ish asked. Ish always called him by his first name.

                “I didn’t know there were any survivors of the burn experiments,” Roy said.

                “Oh, there weren’t,” Ish said. “You murdered every last one of them.”

                “Then how can she be here, Ishmael?” Roy asked.

                “Ishvala.”

                “What?”

                “My name. Ish isn’t short for Ishmael. It’s short for Ishvala.”

                “Oh,” Roy said. Everything was starting to come back to him.

                Ishvala patted him on the shoulder. “Sometimes the ol’ memory takes hit immediately after death. Events get jumbled. The mind tries to fill in the gaps. It can lead to some confusion.”

                “I’m dead,” Roy said.

                “Yep,” Ishvala said. “So are all of them.” He gestured expansively at the crowded town hall.

                “I remember now,” Roy said. He _had_ stood trial. Then Grumman had pardoned him, commending him for his deeds on the Promised Day. Roy had become Führer President. He had achieved his goals. Eventually, as everyone must, he had died. And now he had to face what came next.

                Ishvala held up a finger to the crowd. “Give us a moment. You have questions, Roy Boy?”

                “I…” Roy started. “So this is my punishment? An eternal town hall?”

                Ishvala laughed. It was a great, booming laugh filled with amusement if not mirth. “Oh, no, Roy. This isn’t eternal, and it’s not punishment.”

                “I hardly will believe that this is my reward,” Roy replied.

                “Roy, this isn’t about you.” Ishvala gestured to the crowd again. “This is about _them_. Paradise isn’t a place; it’s a state of mind. The poor and the meek have their place at my side, but some need closure first. The ones who are here are the ones who need that from _you_.”

                “I don’t think I can give them that,” Roy said.

                “You don’t need to rush,” Ishvala said. “Take as much time as you need. Since you’ll are dead, it’s not like we need to break for food or sleep or the potty or anything.”

                Roy looked Mandelbaum in the eye. “I initially joined the military to help people. Then Executive Order #3066 came down…” Roy trailed off. The words he said to himself in his head did not sound as good when said out loud to one of his victims.

                “And?” Mandelbaum prompted.

                “If I’d disobeyed it,” Roy continued “I would have been court martialed. Then I wouldn’t have been able to help anyone.”

                Mandelbaum was not satisfied. “Do you call what you did to me “helping”?” she asked sarcastically.

                “No, of course not,” Roy said. “But I had to choose.”

                “So, what? I lost some mental calculation? Everything you put me through – all the pain I felt – that was so that at some point, somewhere down the line, you’d be able to help someone else??”

                “Yes,” Roy said softly.

                “Oh, screw you,” Mandelbaum said. “God, I don’t know why I thought talking to you would do any good. You aren’t worth my time.” She stopped and took a deep breath before she spoke again.  “Excuse me, Lord Ishvala?”

                “Yes, my child?”

                “In Paradise, can I have a bunch of buff angels feed me chocolate covered strawberries?”

                “Of course, my child,” Ishvala said, “It’s Paradise.”

                “Thank you, Lord,” she said. She addressed Roy. “Have a nice afterlife.” If her words didn’t seem quite sincere, they weren’t quite a curse, either. Rising from her seat, she threaded her way through the crowd and left the town hall.

                “One down,” Ishvala said, smiling.

                Roy’s eyes traced the contour of the room. It was a dreadfully large hall, he realized, and every seat but one was filled. It sunk in that he was going to be there for some time.

               

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to write a story that avoided the Heaven-Hell dichotomy. I also wanted to do it in the style of the slow reveal. And I wanted a story where Roy does a town hall in Ishval. (In canon, there are barely any scenes where Roy talks to Ishvalan characters.) I hope that you liked it.


	3. Other People's Children

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, a special thanks to bearonthecouch for beta-reading this entry for me!
> 
> Secondly, this addition also reference a manga-only event. In this case, it's Hughes having a role in the Supreme Cleric's plan to offer his life to Bradley in exchange for Bradley sparing the remaining Ishvalans.

                Maes Hughes remembered being shot. Then things got fuzzy for a bit. Eventually, however, he found himself in a building in what looked to be Ishval. At first he figured this must be the part where his life flashed before his eyes – he wasn’t looking forward to that - but he began to notice details that didn’t fit. For one, the entranceway behind him was blocked by vertical, metal bars. He could see the Ishvalan desert through the bars, but he noticed that the view got blurry if he looked too far to the sides. Across the room was a window with a glass panel in it. Off to one side was an Ishvalan man.

                “Who are you?” Maes asked.

                “Ishvala.”

                “Like, _the_ Ishvala?”

                “Yes.”

                “This is about the Ishval Civil War.”

                “Yes.”

                Maes didn’t like to think about that. He’d spent a lot of time and effort and energy not thinking about that. He never talked about it with Gracia. He’d intended to never talk about it with his darling Elicia. It looked like he was going to have to talk about it with Ishvala. After all, the door behind him was barred.

                “I tried to stop it,” Maes said. The plan had been the Supreme Cleric’s, but Maes had played an integral role.

                “You did,” Ishvala agreed. “You failed.”

                “Well, why didn’t _you_ stop it?”

                “Why don’t I tie strings to every mortal and make them bounce about at whim?”

                “You could have done _something_.”

                “Like what? Wrote GENOCIDE IS WRONG in the sky with clouds?” Ishvala sighed. “I sent prophets.”

                “Never heard of them.”

                “But you nevertheless knew your right hand from your left,” Ishvala pressed, “or you wouldn’t have tried to stop it.”

                “They prayed to you,” Maes said. “It’s why I figured you didn’t exist.”

                “I know,” Ishvala said, “but out there-” He pointed to beyond the barred door behind Maes. “-Out there everyone gets free will. Even if they misuse it.” He hunched his shoulders. “It’s rarely for more than a century. Everything gets sorted out after that.”

                “They would have shot me for disobeying orders,” Maes said.

                “How’d that work out for you?” Ishvala asked.

                “Are they really planning to sacrifice the entire country?”

                “Yes.”

                “Do they succeed?”

                “That will depend on what choices everyone makes.”

                “I guess I failed at stopping that, too,” Maes sighed. “And now my precious Elicia is going to grow up without a father.” A horrible thought crossed his mind. _If_ she got to grow up.

                “Lots of children have to grow up without fathers,” Ishvala said. “In some cases because of you.”

                “But I did try,” Maes said. An idea was forming in his mind. “That’s got to count for something. And I died trying to stop Bradley and all the rest from killing more people.”

                “You want some kind of reward?” Ishvala asked.

                Maes nodded eagerly. “I was thinking maybe I could, you know, watch over little Elicia. Be her ghostly guardian.” Get her and Gracia to leave the country.

                “No.”

                “Come on! She’s only three years old!” Maes reached into his pocket for a picture, but his wallet was missing. Of course. He was dead, a soul. He didn’t actually have pockets. He patted himself. He felt solid, but no matter what his mind was telling him, he knew he no longer had corporal form.

                Ishvala raised an eyebrow. “You’d watch over only her? Just her, no others?”

                “Absolutely,” Maes said. “She’s my baby girl. As her daddy, it’s my job to look out for her.”

                “What about the children of strangers? You wouldn’t watch over them?”

                Maes fought the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He considered lying, making promises that he couldn’t keep. His ability to do that was how he’d survived for as long as he had under Bradley’s rule. When he looked Ishvala in the eye, however, he just knew that only the truth would suffice.

                “No.”

                “That is my answer, as well.”

                “You’d let Elicia suffer because I don’t care about other people’s children?”

                Ishvala shook his head. “That’s not why you can’t be her ghostly guardian. You’re dead, Maes. The dead don’t get to go back. Still, I am not without compassion. The window you see will allow you to watch the world of the living.”

                Maes bound eagerly across the room and peered through the window. Once close to it, he could see that it did not show the Ishvalan desert that would be on the other side of the room. In fact, it looked like the more northern parts of Amestris.

                “Where is this?”

                “The slums outside of Asbec,” Ishvala said.

                Two Ishvalan children were playing. Maes could hear their conversation when he got close.

                “My mom says that in Ishval, it never snows,” the first little girl was saying.

                “Uh uh,” said the other girl. “I don’t believe it.”

                “It’s true!”

                “Then what’s it do during the winter, huh? You can’t have winter without snow!”

                “It rains sand,” said the first girl. “Duh. That’s why deserts have so many dunes.”

                It was hard to tell the ages of the girls, but Maes thought they looked eight or nine. He realized that they might not have been born in Ishval, or if they had been, they must have left it at such a young age that they did not remember it.

                He frowned. “I don’t think Elicia is in Asbec.”

                “You can change the view,” Ishvala explained. “Just touch it.”

                Gingerly, Maes put a finger to the pane of glass. The image blurred and then changed. When it cleared, Maes found himself watching a light-skinned Ishvalan boy and an Amestrian man with only one arm.

                “Here you go, Mr. Bounty Hunter,” the boy said. Maes saw that he was holding a cup and a bowl of something. He set the items down before the bounty hunter, who awkwardly began to eat.

                “Still not Elicia,” Maes muttered. If he could just find Elicia, maybe there was a way for him to contact her; blast whatever Ishvala had said. He touched the screen again. When the view cleared, he found himself looking at an old woman with one eye and a crutch and a boy with a scar on his shoulder. She was quizzing him.

                “Patella?” she asked. The boy pointed to his knees. She smiled at him. “Very good. Clavicle?”

                “Right here, Mistress Shan,” the boy said, touching his collar bone.

                “Correct again,” Mistress Shan beamed. “You are going to be a great doctor someday.”

                “I want to make the Rockbells proud!” he enthused.

                “That’s good for him, but where’s Elicia?” Maes demanded.

                “O-oh. You are unlikely to see her in that window,” Ishvala said. “Now, I’ve got a bridge game with Leto, so I’m going to take off. I’ll be back later, okay?”

                “No, don’t leave yet! Damn it! Why can’t I see Elicia in the window?”

                “It only shows other people’s children,” Ishvala said. He vanished, leaving Maes alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I didn't honestly expect to solve The Problem of Evil in my fan fic when other, better writers have been failing since the time of Job, but I tried to write something satisfactory. I hope that you liked it!


	4. Needle & Thread

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Knox doesn't have a canon last name, so I dubbed him Henry.

                Dr. Henry Knox had never been a particularly religious man, and whatever faith he’d had he’d lost in Ishval, so he was surprised to discover that there was, in fact, an afterlife. Incidentally, it was an afterlife that involved Ishvala. At least, that’s who Henry assumed the Ishvalan man before him was. Behind Ishvala was an open, golden gate with a bright glow coming from within it.

                “Henry,” Ishvala intoned. “You are here to stand for final judgement.”

                “Nope,” Henry said.

                “Nope?” Ishvala asked. He lifted an eyebrow.

                “I don’t need an omnipotent deity to tell me that I cocked up my life,” Henry said. He glanced around and behind him. The golden gate was set in an opening between two stone walls – or maybe they were cliff sides. In any sense, the walls circled around Ishvala and Henry. Behind Henry, there was another opening, no gate this time. He could see stairs leading downward. There were candles on the sides of each step, although they cast more shadow than light.

                “Oh, I wouldn’t go that way,” Ishvala said.

                “Sounds like a recommendation to me,” Henry said, turning an about face. He took a first tentative step down. He expected Ishvala to do something to stop him, but the deity did nothing. Ten steps down, Henry paused to take an assessment of himself. He felt solid, but he didn’t think that was quite right, on the account of being dead. He appeared to be wearing his doctorial wear. He felt his pockets. He had a pack of cigarettes. Pulling one out, he lit it off of the flame of one of the candles. It could hardly harm him now. He searched his pockets further. In one pocket he discovered a surgical kit, with a needle and two spools of thread, one gold and one black.

                He considered his surroundings. Now that he was on them, the steps reminded him of a narrow, valley pass deep in the Ishvalan desert he’d traversed once, except the real one didn’t have candles on the stairs. On either side of the stairs was a high, jutting wall of stone that he’d never have any hope of climbing.

                Henry glanced around until he found a good rock protruding from the wall. He tied the end of the gold thread around the rock and then let it unspool as he walked. Right now, the path didn’t have any branches, but he didn’t know if it would stay that way. After all, he recalled that the pass in the world of the living split in a dangerously confusing manner. As he started downward again, he observed that no matter how much of the gold thread he trailed behind him, it never ran out.

                After he had walked for a bit – it was hard to gauge the time – he put his foot down on something that wasn’t the next stone step, and a voice called, “Ooph!”

                “Aw, shoot,” Henry said. “Sorry about that.” He took his foot back up a step.

                “Urgh,” the voice called. “I don’t even know how I can still feel my leg when it’s no longer attached.”

                “What.”

                “Er…I guess I should warn you. I’m in a few different pieces.”

                Henry crouched down and used the dim light from the candles to see what was on the next step down.

                It was a head, set on its side. There was a leg next to it.

                “The rest of me is around,” the head said. “It’s a bit hard to move when you don’t have it together.” The head gave a weak laugh.

                Two steps down, Henry saw something moving. It was a hand and arm, and it was pulling itself up onto the step with the head and the leg. Henry jerked back in horror.

                The eyes in the head shifted their gaze to get a good look at Henry. At the same time, Henry recognized the surgical precision of the cut on the neck. The man hadn’t been cut to pieces with an axe or a sword. It had been done with a scalpel. With a sinking feeling, Henry knew that wherever the chest was, it would be covered in burn marks.

                “I’ve seen you before,” the head said. “You were with the Flame Alchemist. You were the one cutting the bodies up after the Flame Alchemist…after he…” He didn’t finish the sentence. “I watched you before he did me.”

                “Sorry,” Henry said. At first, he didn’t know what else to say, but then inspiration came to him. “Hey, do you want me to put you back together?”

                “You can do that?”

                “Yeah, I think so,” Henry said. He sighed. “I think this is why I’ve got a needle and thread on me. Where’s your torso?”

                “Down three steps,” the head said.

                Stepping gingerly so as not to tread on any body parts, Henry went to it. “I’m going to reattach your head first. Does that work?”

                “Sure,” the head said. Henry picked it up and set it down next to the torso. Threading a length of black thread through the needle, he began stitching the head back on the torso, with a seam forming about the neck.

                “What’s your name?” Henry asked, after he had finished reattaching the head.

                “Adam. You?”

                “Henry.”

                “Why were you cutting us all to pieces?”

                “Orders from up top,” Henry said. “They wanted data.”

                “What? Like, ‘will Ishvalans die if you set them on fire’?” Adam asked.

                “Pretty much,” Henry said. “Most of it was just cruelty for the sake of cruelty, when it came down to it.” There’d been a period when orders from above had been to cut the corpses into pieces for some Godforsaken reason. “I’m going to do your right arm next.”

                “It’s right on the other side of my torso,” Adam said.

                “Got it. So why are you down here rather than up there? I would have expected Ishvala to have put you back together.”

                Adam was quiet for a moment. “Yeah, I saw her when I first arrived here.”

                “Her?” Henry asked. “Ishvala looked like a bloke to me.”

                Adam shook his head and looked pleased that he could do so again. “No, she was definitely a lady. Looked kind of like my wife, almost. Like they could have been cousins. Anyway, a whole bunch of us arrived at once, and Ishvala started putting everyone back together, only she didn’t need to bother with a needle and thread. She unburned everyone, too.”

                Henry glanced at the charring on the chest. “I don’t think I can do anything about that. I’m just a doctor, not God.”

                “It’s fine,” Adam said. “So, anyway, I used my hands to start dragging the other pieces of my body down the stairs. I was in a bit of a panic, honestly.”

                “Why? I would think it would be a straight shot to Paradise.”

                Adam was quiet again. “I, uh, wasn’t the best person I could have been. Ishvala, she was fixing everyone right up, but, well, she was _looking_ at them. Like she knew everything about them. I wasn’t…I’m not ready to face that. So I went down instead.”

                Henry worked in silence a bit longer until he had finally finished reattaching all of Adam’s limbs. Once Adam was back together again, Adam stood up. Wordlessly, Henry took off his coat so that Adam could wrap it around his waist.

                “Want to keep going down?” Henry asked.

                “Better than up,” Adam said. “Oh, boy, it feels good to be able to walk again.”

                For a while Henry and Adam walked without there being any change to their surroundings. The walls continued to extend upward on either side past where they could see in the dim light of the candlesticks. Each step of the stairs was followed by another below it. Eventually, however, the path split before them and then split again. Henry and Adam didn’t pay much attention to the route they took, since the gold thread steadily unspooled behind them, ready to lead them back up if needed.

                It was after several such splits in the path that Henry and Adam encountered another soul. If the stairs weren’t so narrow, they might have missed him in the low light, as he was hunched up on one of the steps. As it was, they nearly walked into him.

                “Who’s there?” the figure asked.

                “Couple of sinners,” Henry said. “I’m Henry Knox. This is Adam.”

                “I’m Zack.”

                “What brings you down this far?” Adam asked.

                “I’m lost,” Zack said.

                “We can fix that,” Henry said cheerfully. “This gold thread behind me leads nearly all the way to the top. Follow it, and you’ll find your way just fine.”

                “Oh,” Zack said. He made no move to stand up and ascend the stairs. Henry and Adam nodded at each other, and then they both sat down on the stairs by him.

                “What did you do?” Adam asked.

                “What?”

                Henry gave a grunt of agreement. “Everyone starts out at the top, right? So why’d you go down instead of through the gate?”

                “I…”

                “I sincerely doubt you’re the worst of us,” Henry said. “I’m a war criminal. Whatever you did, it couldn’t have been as bad as that.”

                “Right,” Adam said. “I’m sure whatever you did, Ishvala can forgive it.”

                “I quarreled with my brother,” Zack whispered.

                “What over?” Henry asked.

                “He said that I stole from him,” Zack said. “I didn’t! But he wouldn’t believe me, and he wouldn’t let it go. So I told him I never wanted to see him again, not here or in the life to come.”

                “And let me guess,” Henry said, “you go to the gate and Ishvala looked kind of like him?”

                “Almost exactly like him,” Zack cried. “I can’t face him.”

                “Yes you can,” Adam said. “Just tell him you were sorry for being angry. And tell your brother that, too, when you get to Paradise.”

                “But-” No one interrupted Zack, but his sentence continued no further than that.

                “I guess what it comes down to,” Henry said, “is do you still never want to see your brother again?”

                “Right? Are you still angry at him?” Adam asked.

                Zack didn’t answer right away. “I suppose I’m not,” he said finally. “The whole dispute seems kind of silly now, actually. You know what? That’s what I’ll tell Ishvala when I see him. Thanks, you guys.” Standing up for the first time, he found the gold thread and began climbing the stairs. Henry and Adam started their descent again. They walked in silence for a bit, until Adam finally spoke.

                “I hit my wife,” Adam confessed.

                “Ouch,” Henry said.

                “Not just once, either,” Adam admitted. He sighed. “I had a long time to think, before you found me. And maybe I’ll head up the stairs someday, but I’m not ready yet.” He shook his head to shake away troubling thoughts. “So what do you think is at the bottom?”

                “Assuming the stairs don’t just go on forever? I don’t know. Lake of fire, maybe?”

                “Pictures of my wife,” Adam said. “I’m serious! If up is Paradise, down’s got to be the opposite. I can’t think of a worse torture than having constant reminders that make me squirm with guilt at what a worthless husband I was.”

                “ _If_ down’s the opposite,” Henry mused. “For all we know, we’ll finally get to the end of these stairs and be right back in front of that gate, with that bastard Ishvala grinning at us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Diana Wynne Jones was a big influence on the conception of this chapter.


End file.
